1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus such as a laser beam printer (to be referred to as an LBP for brevity hereinafter) and, more specifically, to a recording apparatus which can eliminate dropping of pages or disturbanoe of the order of pages when the paper sheets (to be referred to as sheets hereinafter) are transferred two or more at a time or ramped.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recording apparatus such as LBPs can continuously form images on a photosensitive body. Therefore, if the distance between the sheets is reduced to a minimum during the conveying, the maximum number of printed sheets may be obtained within a given period, so that the printing time may be significantly reduced. With such a recording device, even if a trouble occurs during the step of conveying the sheets such as jamming, a double transfer in which more than one sheet are fed together, a ramp sheet transfer (or simply a "ramp") and so on, it is preferable that the throughput (of the number of printing sheets per unit time) of the printer not be reduced. When jamming occurs, the printer must, in general, be immediately stopped and the jammed sheet must be removed. However, when a double transfer or ramp occurs, this does not necessarily result in jamming. Therefore, if a separate tray is incorporated to receive the double-transferred or ramped sheet, the printing operation need not be interrupted and be continued. However, if the double-transferred sheet or ramped sheet is simply exhausted to the separate tray, the information printed on such a double-transferred or ramped sheet inadvertently drops out and this dropped piece of information must be supplemented afterwards.